That's Hell You're Walking Into
by imprimatur13
Summary: Reimagining of the "Last Stardust" scene at the end of UBW, where Shirou and Archer are in the Einzbern Castle.


I lay on my back, utterly defeated. Around me was brilliant white; the white of ideals long since leached of all life. Blades were thrust into the ground, piercing the snow effortlessly and penetrating the cold rocky surface. Blood poured out of my body, staining the white of dead ideals with the essence of my life. Would I die like this? No, Shirou Emiya can't die like this.

Most of what he said was right. But it felt like he was forgetting something important. Like there was something lost when the vibrancy was gone from him, leaving only the sterile white of the hospital room where he was adopted by the man who gave his life color and joy. Something in the legacy of Kiritsugu Emiya that this man had forgotten.

I now stand in a field, surrounded by fallen men. All bad men, assuredly; the sort that a hero of justice would consider his duty and honour to erase from this world. After all, how many could be saved just by erasing a few evil men?

Yet, as I look at the blood flowing from them, just as red as that which flowed from my own body moments ago, I wonder. Are all men so easily divisible into the good and the evil? These men... they had families. Even if they were evil, surely they loved their parents. Their sisters, brothers, wives, children... How could I destroy the lives of those innocent people by killing one of their loved ones? How could I possibly live with the knowledge that I did that?

Someone once said that it would be better for the world to end in ice than fire. Surveying the bloody tundra, I disagree. I think there is no worse way to end the world than in this cold unfeeling white way.

I spoke to the man who did all this.

"I saw Hell." This was no typical hell I saw, but the true Hell of human suffering that didn't care whether it was in fire or ice. People suffer burns either way, and saying there was only one Hell was foolish. There are as many Hells as there are people, and this is mine.

"I saw Hell." I am now in a tunnel. In this tunnel, a place built for men to move from one place to another under the bowels of the Earth, there are corpses studded with arrows. The dead lean against the walls, the blood oozing out of them contrasting with the dead white walls. The way they lean is reminiscent of someone taking a break after a day of hard work, but there was no mistake. These men were dead by his hand.

"I saw Hell." I now stand by a tree, and the green of the meadow around me is smothered by that hateful colour, the colour which kills all others in pursuit of its lifeless ideal. The ground was white with snow, and the bodies littering it were like trash in comparison. They were like discarded coffee cans, the blood trickles like the dripping coffee staining the dirt. All they required was a cleaner, someone to come in and pick them up and incinerate them with the trash.

Now the scene changed to something different. There was before me not death, but life. It was life in the primacy of its youth, the flower of its blooming. And like a flower, it was doomed to wither and die. A young redheaded boy knelt before a great power, pledging his eternal servitude. I wanted to tell him to stop, tell him he was throwing his life away. But I knew there was no point. He'd just turn around and smile at me. "I know," he'd say. "But I'm doing it anyway."

What foolishness. And yet... yet isn't that true? Don't I only know this because that's what I would say? Is he not I? How can I blame this idealistic young man, when there was nothing but me in his eyes?

"I saw the Hell that I would go through someday." I saw that I was destined to return to that infantile state, because I couldn't stand being given love and affection for free. I couldn't stand being the only one to survive the Fuyuki Fire and be adopted by a loving father. I couldn't. I had to kill my happy life, kill the colour, and return it all to the white nothingness of that hospital room where my dazed self woke up after the memories of blinding light and scorching heat.

And so I returned to my original place in this world. I again was in the sea of white, surrounded by steel blades impaling it. But now I am not on my back. I stand, facing the man who this became, and who became it.

Without turning to face me, he says, "Maybe I could have handled things better." He doesn't relax his stance at all; if he wanted to he could turn around and finish me off, but he doesn't.

I sigh, as I know that there stands a man who was me, and who I may myself become. I can't hate him, I can only want to save him. And maybe I can save him. "You seem to have lost many things," I say.

"You're wrong," he said. "I'm only here because I was stubbornly intent on losing nothing. Indeed, I lost nothing. But... Yes, there was one thing. There was one thing that I forgot."

I felt a great heat behind me. It warmed the cold ice which stabbed my body like needles, but it soon burned by back with its rage. I turned around, and my vision was consumed by black smoke and red flames.

"At the very beginning," I said, "I saw that Hell."

There was a young boy, no older than seven or eight years before me. He dabbed at his eyes, taking the tears of frustration from them. The heat broiled up around him and the smoke choked him. It came into his eyes and he couldn't see anything before him. His parents were dead, immolated immediately by the flames. There was nothing left for him, or in him. He had cried out for salvation, but none came; his saviours had burned to dust.

As he walked, he saw others running into the fire, trying to save others. Futile, he knew; the fire had claimed the lives of his two protectors, and there was no way anyone else could survive it. Perhaps they had sacrificed themselves in their last moments to extend his life a bit more, but what would be the point? A few more minutes of pain until he met their fate. Nothing awaited on the horizon, for the horizon itself was swallowed by endless black and red.

"Hey, that's Hell you're walking into," I said to him. I warned him not to drown himself in his regrets and the flames.

He didn't listen to me. He collapsed to the ground, taking security in the only thing that was still stable in the world. The hard earth could protect him where all else failed, couldn't it? He listened to it for a heartbeat, something comforting to let him know he was safe. There was nothing but the crackling of fire and the crashing of collapsing buildings, and then he knew that nothing in Heaven or Earth would rescue him from his doom.

Then he decided something, of his own heart. He decided to take the strength his parents had shown him throughout his life, and bring it out of himself. He cried, but he opened his eyes and stood up. He continued walking, feeling only secure in his blind faith that something would be waiting for him at the end of this course.

"What was the point?" I asked him. "What was the point of you... of me surviving this hell? Why were we spared?"

He didn't answer me. He just kept walking on, tears streaming down his face, holding that little faith in his heart.

I looked away from him and I saw another. I saw one who was not he nor I, but an adult, dark-haired man. He was bent over in the rubble, digging through it with a look of desparation in his eyes. He wanted to find someone there, someone he could save so he could bring an end to the hell inside himself. He pushed through the disappointment of corpse after corpse, holding on to the hope that there would be a living person somewhere in this hell. He wanted so desparately to believe that, because he knew that if there was no one in this hell outside, then his own soul was already barren and dead inside of him.

I saw him and was drawn to him. I wanted to help him in his task, to help save him. I started walking towards him, when I was stopped.

"Hey." It was the voice of the man who brought me here to this hell I had thought I deserted long ago. His dark skin, white hair, and red clothes called to me, and I could not refuse. They had been tempered through long years of service to others, cleaning up humanity's messes. Besides, the man digging through the rubble was busy saving himself, but the white-haired man standing behind me was no longer able to do that. He needed another. He needed me.

"That's Hell you're walking into," he said.

I smiled. "This is what you forgot," I said. "I admit that at first it was just admiration. But at the heart of it all was a wish."

I still carried within me the blind faith of that young boy, walking through the darkness of the firelight.

"The wish for this hell to be undone. The unfulfilled wish of a man who only wanted to help others, but who lost everything in the end."

You too held that within you, didn't you? I think that to myself. You said you were intent on losing nothing, so you must have held his example close to your own heart, and decided never to repeat it. Never to walk through the same hell that Kiritsugu did. But you did, didn't you? You couldn't help it. It was who you are.

But there was something you forgot in all this. You forgot that blind hope, that empty faith that could fill a man's heart and give him the strength to go on, no matter what. You forgot that small spark of happiness within your soul, so you grew bitter and began to curse the world you saved.

Let me show you what that is, for you have lost the ability to see it yourself.

I visualize it. The kneeling man before me, Kiritsugu Emiya, bent before the ideal of hope that he held within himself. He found a young boy, a redheaded child named Shirou. In my vision, a golden light erupted between the two, spiraling out from them and consuming my world. The man behind me, Archer, was brought into this world of light within my soul.

In this world, darkness appeared. But the darkness had its limits; there was a central figure that stood alone in the darkness of my heart and provided a safe haven for my wartorn soul. A sheath, of gold and blue. It represented the age-old hope of mankind, that this suffering and hell which we encounter all the time in life, whether outside of us or within us, could one day be conquered. It is the sign of the All-Too Distant Utopia, and it lies within Shirou Emiya. It provides him with the strength to kill the darkness and find his own way, and the power to bring others into his world of light, so that they can take some of it with them when they leave. The pieces of light that they take become part of their own hearts, and in this way mankind can be saved.

I return to the vision of Kiritsugu before me, and I walk through the rubble to him. I am beat down by the heat, and I pass him by. The path leads to a summit, where a single sword is stuck into the ground.

"Even if that life will be that of a machine?" Archer asks, always standing right behind me.

"Yeah," I answer. "Even if it's a life dripping with hypocrisy."

I take hold of it, and my hand erupts into flames. They burn but I embrace the sensation.

"I will keep striving to be a hero of justice."

I pull the sword out, once again accepting my mission.

The sky changes colour, the black smoke dissipating in an instant. As the bright light of the sun replaced the darkness, I felt the wounds covering my body heal. The power of Avalon within me protected me, and always would.

I turn around to face my future self.

"I don't want to have to kill you," I say. "But I know you won't let me leave this Reality Marble without it."

Archer chuckled. "You're quite right, I won't. Choosing to go forward despite the hypocrisy you see is a mark of childish stupidity, which I cannot allow to exist. Not only do you harm yourself, but you harm the world by continuing to act as an example to young people who will follow in your ways. Your attitude is a cancer that must be cut out."

I summon the twin blades of black and white to my hands. "I'll prove you wrong." I run toward him.

He brings out the same pair of weapons.

I reach him, and our swords clash.

* * *

This may have been, as the tag implies, a bit OOC on Shirou's part. Thought it was interesting anyway, though. Hope ya liked it.


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